Health bosses sound out real estate agents to help house doctors

Queensland hospital bosses are calling up real estate agents to secure limited homes for hard-to-find doctors, in a convergence of two pressures facing authorities nationwide.

Health Minister Yvette D’Ath cited the bureaucrats’ efforts after a major speech on Wednesday outlining the state government’s new 10-year vision to shift the focus “from illness to wellness”.

Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said on Wednesday housing was a major issue in dealing with health workforce shortages. Credit: Glenn Hunt

Called HealthQ32, the high-level document sets out seven priority areas. A decade-long strategy and actions for each of the areas will be released “throughout 2023”, the department website states.

But after delivering her speech to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia event, the key question for many of those who submitted them to the facilitator was more immediate: How does the housing crunch affect the government’s ability to attract and retain new health workers?

D’Ath said the task was a challenge, with the construction of student, nursing and clinician accommodation in the pipeline. Hospital and health services bosses, however, were using more unorthodox methods to find accommodation for staff.

“I’ve got chief executives who are ringing up real estate agents right now saying, ‘What have you got if I bring a doctor to town?’ she said.

“That’s how much we are reaching in to try to deal with the challenges with workforce shortages, and we know housing is one of those critical areas.”

Beyond the workforce issues, an ageing population, worsening GP access and declining private health insurance coverage, along with the pandemic and its flow-on effects, had created a “perfect storm” of pressures on public hospitals and the health system more broadly, D’Ath said.

She was heartened by recent announcements out of national cabinet indicating the federal government was keen to lead a discussion on primary health reform, saying her state would not “shirk from our responsibilities” across the range of care either.

But D’Ath said the current funding system between the Commonwealth and states “works against us” by focusing only on hospital activity, with the new agreement being hashed out needing to look beyond calls for more money and 50:50 cost sharing.

“Start incentivising us to make people well, as opposed to funding us for treating people when they’re chronic,” she said.

“We want to ensure people can have access to care and services they need to keep themselves well, rather than waiting and entering the acute system in ill health.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last week promised $2.2 billion in the coming federal budget for an overhaul of Medicare, with health to remain at the top of national cabinet’s agenda for the rest of the year.